Category Archives: America’s Best Foods

America does food better than any other nation (shut up, France) and here are the most American of our culinary obsessions.

S’mores: Giving America Yet Another Reason To Love Fire

Posted on April 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

“No, you see, they’re called S’Mores because you always WANT Some…”

~No, we get it, you don’t have to finish

 smores

Camping is as American of a tradition as you can find among middle class people who take delight in purposely leaving the comforts of world behind so they can sleep under a pitched piece of fabric and try to stave off their urge to use the bathroom until the weekend is over, taking advantage of our nation’s surplus of forested wilderness instead of burning it to the ground to put up the Walmart that, let’s be real, will work around zoning regulations eventually.  And when we go camping, we’re almost guaranteed to run into two American activities—having outdoor intercourse interrupted by murdering monsters, and sticking a marshmallow into fire and smudging it on some chocolate between two graham crackers.

Today we’re going to tell you the history of the most American camping activity of the two.  No, it’s not the slasher film thing.  Let’s take a moment to nurse the soon-to-be-burned roof of our mouths as we talk about…

S’mores: Giving America Yet Another Reason To Love Fire

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The Craziest Hot Dogs in Professional Baseball (Major League Edition)

Posted on April 21, 2015 | 3 comments

“Take me out to the barf game, take me out to the puke!”

~Your obnoxious seven-year-old nephew who, you have to admit, probably has a bright parody career ahead of him

messy hot dog

America invented most of the world’s best sports.  Football?  That was us.  Basketball?  Sure, it was by a Canadian, but only because he was being paid by the Springfield, Massachusetts YMCA when he came up with it, because Canadian dollars were still printed on tree bark at the time, and we were responsible for all the changes that make it recognizable as a sport today.  Soccer?  Nice try, not a real sport, next question.

But of all the excuses for young men (and women!) to vent out the aggression of youth in a competitive and potentially humiliating environment that has been birthed within these borders, only one sport is iconic enough to be known as our national pastime.  No, not Mixed Martial Arts, that’s a terrible guess, are you high right now?  We’re talking about baseball of course.

You might view baseball as a relic of a simpler age, when men were men, owners were horrific bigots, and amphetamines were just, everywhere, all the time, which would explain why the sport struggles in some markets to maintain its relevancy.  It’s a slow-moving game trying to make its way in a fast-paced world, and say what you will about heart palpitations but taking the majority of the workforce off of Speed in the 80’s didn’t really do much for the pace of the game.  Major League Baseball teams try to combat the issues implicit with asking some 40,000 Americans to sit very still for three or four hours by making a day at the ball game a full entertainment and gastronomical experience.  This involves a gallons of watered down beer and, more recently, absurd, amazing American culinary disasterpieces for us to shove in our faces and slink into our chairs to ride out our food coma contently watching yet another 1-2-3 inning.

Sure, we could go on about crazy nachos served in miniature baseball hats, or giant cups of frozen sugar (okay, so maybe malt cups aren’t exactly a new development) but let’s be real here.  This is America’s sport, we’re going to need to talk about America’s food.  America’s best, most absurdly adaptable, most occasionally unnecessarily expensive food.  Let’s get to it.

The Craziest Hot Dogs in Professional Baseball (Major League Edition)

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The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

Posted on March 31, 2015 | 2 comments

“*begins seizing from sugar overdose*”

~AFFotD’s official product taste tester

giant candy corn

America loves candy so much that we wrote a kind of annoying song about how much we want it back in 1965, and we’ve not shut up about it since.  There’s something comforting about mainlining sugar into your veins, no matter how often Japan tries to ruin the concept.

And, in the gluttonous nature of American know-how that we like to champion, America also loves giant food that doesn’t need to be quite so giant.  Naturally, these two schools of thought have collided on many occasions, because a giant candy bar is much cooler than a giant stalk of celery, mom.

In this enterprising spirit, we’re here to salute America’s giant candy confections, but we’re not going to simply stick with some Guinness book of world records bullshit.

Sure, we could spend a few thousand words telling you about the 12,000 pound chocolate bar made by Chicago’s World Finest Chocolates, or the 7,000 pound lollipop made by See’s Candies out in Burlingame, California, but what good does that do you, the reader?

It might impress you, but does it give you the opportunity to go out, find something horribly unhealthy, and devour it in one sitting in what will probably prove to be the last and greatest mistake you ever made in your sugar-shortened life?

Hell no!  So we’re going to stick with the world’s largest candy items that you, yes you, irresponsible you, can purchase this very moment.

After all, you’re an adult, you can and have eaten cake for breakfast because you make your own rules and, hey, we’re all going to die someday, and overdosing on sucrose doesn’t sound much worse than drowning.

The World’s Largest Candy (That You Can Buy Right Now)

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Lobster Rolls: America’s Most Expensive Sandwich That’s Worth Every Penny

Posted on March 26, 2015 | 1 comment

“Oh, this is so good.  Wait, what’s that?  Twenty three dollars?  Son of a bitch…eh, still worth it.”

~Lobster Roll Purchaser

lobster roll

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again—few creatures of the sea are more American than lobsters.  They’re ageless monsters that turn red when we boil them alive, at which point we pay inordinate amounts of money to dunk them in melted butter while wearing a bib at a fancy dinner.  The fact that lobsters used to be considered peasant food, to the point that 17th century indentured servants insisted that it was inhumane to be fed lobster more than twice a week, only make its current decadent reputation more American.

Admittedly, much of the reason why the first Americans to encounter the lobster assumed it was only fit for bait and fertilizer stems from its “oh my God, it’s a monster, KILL IT WITH FIRE” appearance, as well as the fact that we used to primarily canned lobster meat to preserve it because we sometimes cannot be trusted with nice things.  Now, by the 20th century we realized lobster actually “tastes delicious” and “should probably cost more money” so it began to be treated as such, with “ordering a lobster in order to get the most expensive thing on the menu” being a worn out entertainment trope for quite some time by now.

Now, since we live in America, we naturally have to take expensive and gaudy ingredients and transform them into dishes that are typically served on paper plates with plastic utensils, and that’s exactly what we’ve done with lobster.  While we have plenty of “cheap foods made expensive by adding lobster meat” dishes, from lobster mac and cheese to lobster bisque, one of the most iconic, and most satisfying, American preparation of lobster can be summed up in two simple words.

Lobster.  Roll.

Lobster meat in a hot dog bun that costs way more money than you feel comfortable shelling out for a lunch item that’ll inevitably have half the meat fall out as you eat it, but manages to be delicious enough that you’ll still pay for it, yes,  lobster rolls are an American delicacy, despite every outward appearance trying to tell you otherwise.  Lobster rolls are sneakily classy, just like America.  Lobster rolls are America.  And that’s why we’re devoting this fun fact to…

Lobster Rolls: America’s Most Expensive Sandwich That’s Worth Every Penny

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The Best Potato Chip Flavors You’ve Probably Never Tasted

Posted on February 26, 2015 | Leave a comment

“No, dammit, I said weird things we’d WANT to eat.  Yes, we’re going positive this time round.  No, I’m not drunker than normal.  Just get it done.”

~AFFotD Editor-in-Chief Johnny Roosevelt

sour cream and onion

When we talk about food here, outside of the general “fried?  Gimmegimmegimme” context, we have a tendency to focus on strange flavors or, God forbid, Japan.  That also applies to our discussion of potato chip flavors—generally, when we take the time to describe potato chips to you, the reader, we talk about flavors that other countries like to use, and why those countries are wrong and bad.  We mention potato chips that you haven’t heard of because you live a good life and avoid bad things, and most other countries like to hawk terrible potato chip flavors, and they can go to hell and take their ketchup flavored potato shavings with them, those sons of a bitches.

But we’ve decided that today, just this once, we should try to be positive with our guidance.  So we’re not going to talk about awful potato chip flavors you didn’t know existed.  Instead, we will discuss underrepresented potato chip flavors out there, and let you know what you’re missing.

No, we’re not being sarcastic, why do you keep assuming we’re being sarcastic when we try to say nice things?

The Best Potato Chip Flavors You’ve Probably Never Tasted

 cajun squirrel

This is not on the list.

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Jog N’ Vom: America’s Official Food and Drink Races

Posted on January 15, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Chug chug chug chug chew chew chew chew run run run run!”

~Only the Most American of Runners

pizza run

Americans either love or hate exercising.  Sure, you can find some middle ground of, people that guess they should go for a jog today, but generally speaking, you have two camps of American exercisers—the kind of person that gets really into their workout journal, and the kind of person who actively brags that they go out of the way to limit their day to day physical exertions as much as possible.  The stereotypes are in place—you have the cross-fit trainer on a Paleo diet, or you have the overweight American chugging a beer while eating a ChipoHut Taco (that’s where you take a Chipotle burrito, put it inside a full Pizza Hut pizza, and fold the whole thing into a massive taco).

Naturally, the latter is the more American option.  However, in the past few years, people who “exercise” and “take care of their bodies” and “can go up a flight of stairs without running out of breath” have seemingly taken a hard look at themselves and said, “Yes, I should still exercise, but maybe I can find a way to do it while also being a little unhealthy, which sounds a lot more fun.”

We’ve coined a term for this kind of slightly unhealthy, exponentially more fun exercise—the Jog N’ Vom.  Basically, dozens of races have sprung up across America that don’t want you to just run an arbitrary distance while they time you—they want you to incorporate drinking or eating something super unhealthy into your run, turning your 5K into an eating or drinking competition, which is a wonderful thing.

So, for you health nuts out there that still want to be the best American you can be, we present with you a (fairly) comprehensive list of the races that let you be bad while being good.

Jog N’ Vom:  America’s Official Food and Drink Races

beer run      

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The Best Holiday Treats of Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2014 | Leave a comment

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!”

~Santa Claus, probably, right?  Maybe?

santa cookie

Today is Christmas Eve, that day where you silently complain about the fact that you had to use a vacation day in order to travel back home for the holidays.  For some, it’s an important part of the Christmas tradition, and for others, it’s a day you anxiously power through waiting expectantly for Christmas to finally show up.  And for most of us, it’s a day where oh shit you totally forgot to wrap your presents didn’t you, okay well you should get that shit down and chuck it under the tree before someone notices.

Now, a few days ago we told you about the worst Christmas treats out there.  There was reindeer poop and fruitcake and oh God figgy pudding why as well as a bunch of other horrific British concoctions and it was pretty much awful.  But hey, Christmas is tomorrow, some of you are working a half day or some nonsense like that, so let’s just talk about some Christmas treats that you’d actually want to eat instead.  Because America does actually know a thing or twelve about making Christmas delicious.

The Best Holiday Treats of Christmas

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An AFFotD Thanksgiving: Wherein AFFotD Decries the Fiendish Practices of the Mother Nature Network, Who Have Actively Tried to Ruin Thanksgiving by Making it Healthier, While We Offer Methods to Make Thanksgiving Even More Un-Healthy to Spite These Malcontents

Posted on November 26, 2014 | 4 comments

“Get.  That.  Healthy.  Shit.  Out. Of.  My.  Goddamn.  House.”

~Americans That Appreciate Thanksgiving

photo(78)

America, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means that all of us will be spending some quality time with our families, eating gobs of unhealthy food and washing it down with copious amounts of wine and waiting for that one family member to get a little too tipsy and start talking about “the things wrong with society” with a slightly racist tinge.  Or, if you don’t have a family member who does that, you’re probably that family member, so wait until your fifth glass of wine to talk about how Kim Kardashian was naked in Paper magazine, and how that makes you feel.

Of course, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of the year.  It’s a day that basically is dedicated to making a bunch of delicious food, drinking with family, and watching football without having to leave the house.  It lacks the gift-giving pressure of Christmas, and the inevitable failure to meet expectations of New Year’s Eve.  Sure, a lot of food has to be made, but that tends to be more of a communal experience than anything else, while your dad gets half-jokingly ribbed for spending all of his time drinking beer on the damn couch watching the Dallas game.

The point being, we love Thanksgiving, and we love that people say it’s the one day a year where they really can “let themselves go” when they mean to say it’s like the 150th day this year that they’ve said “fuck it” and decided to really “let themselves go.”  That’s a beautiful thing.

And then you get websites that say stupid, bullheaded things like “9 Thankgiving Dishes Made Healthier.”  No.  We do not want our Thanksgiving to be healthier, Mother Nature Network.  We do not want that one bit.  Stop it.  We said stop.

Wherein AFFotD Decries the Fiendish Practices of the Mother Nature Network, Who Have Actively Tried to Ruin Thanksgiving by Making it Healthier, While We Offer Methods to Make Thanksgiving Even More Un-Healthy to Spite These Malcontents

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Discontinued Doritos Flavors Too Beautiful For This World

Posted on September 17, 2014 | 46 comments

“Why can’t I have you?  But I need you so.”

~American Taste Buds

doritos blazin jalapeno

Doritos are one of the better snack gifts we’ve given to the world.  Since 1964, when we first decided that we could probably get rid of our leftover tortillas by cutting them into triangles, frying them, and smothering them with fake cheese, Doritos has been there for every Super Bowl party and for every 2:30 AM stoned 7-Eleven run.

Even when Japan tried ruining Doritos, which came as a surprise to no one, they forever stood out as delicious, cheesy (or cool-ranchy) ways to get saturated fats into our bodies and flavor powder permanently tattooed onto our fingertips.

Japanese meddling notwithstanding, Doritos has never been content to stand by with just a handful of flavors.  In fact, they’ve released nearly a hundred different flavors throughout the years.  And despite the existence of “ketchup” or “sonic sour cream” flavors on that lengthy list of Doritos flavors that have been released and then rightfully vanquished to that warehouse where they put the Ark of the Covenant, some of these flavors actually sound delicious.  But they’re gone.  No matter how much we want to try them, we never can.

Here are some delicious Doritos flavors that the Frito-Lay company foolishly decided were mistakes.

Discontinued Doritos Flavors Too Beautiful For This World

 locos on doritos on locos

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A History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

Posted on February 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

“I rather do enjoy the taste of cookies, I find them quite divine.”

~Cookie Monster

cookie monster

We love chocolate chip cookies.  You love chocolate chip cookies.  The person right next to you in the heavy winter coat and fingerless gloves loves chocolate chip cookies so much they’re eating one right now, which, Jesus Christ, how did they get into your office?  How did security even let that happen?  What’s the point in having a keycard if any random vagrant can just sneak in to eat baked goods messily over your own keyboard?  Why do their gloves not have fingertips anyway, it does so much less to warm your fingers than regular gloves, they don’t need to use smart phones, and you’d have to imagine if anything fingerless gloves cost more than full ones?  Man, all this thinking has really worn you out, you’d better recharge with a chocolate chip cookie and a tall glass of milk.

Chocolate chip cookies, just like everything else that is delicious and makes life worth living, is an American invention, adding yet again to the list of dishes that are actually more American than apple pie.  And since you’re in the middle of a New-Year-resolution-shame diet while reading this, what better way to make you abandon your foolishness and intake a days’ worth of empty calories by emptying a Chips Ahoy! box than to show numerous pictures of deliciousness while regaling you with the storied history of an American treasure.  The chocolate chip cookie.

A History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie

cookies

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